Cambridge Economics in the Post-Keynesian Era: The Eclipse of Heterodox Traditions

by Ashwani Saith

Overview

This book chronicles the rise and especially the demise of diverse revolutionary heterodox traditions in Cambridge theoretical and applied economics, investigating both the impact of internal pressures within the faculty as also the power of external ideological and political forces unleashed by the global dominance of neoliberalism. Using fresh archival materials, personal interviews and recollections, this meticulously researched narrative constructs the untold story of the eclipse of these heterodox and post-Keynesian intellectual traditions rooted and nurtured in Cambridge since the 1920s, and the rise to power of orthodox, mainstream economics. Also expunged in this neoclassical counter-revolution were the structural and radical policy-oriented macro-economic modelling teams of the iconic Department of Applied Economics,  along with the atrophy of sociology, development and economic history from teaching and research in the self-purifying faculty. This book will be of particular interest to researchers in the history of economic thought, sociology of knowledge, political economy, especially those engaged in heterodox and post-Keynesian economics, and to everyone wishing to make economics fit for purpose again for negotiating the multiple economic, social and environmental crises rampant at national and global levels.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030930196
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	11/11/2022
Series:	Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	756,875
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Ashwani Saith is an Emeritus Professor at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and former Professor of Development Studies&Director, Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics.

Table of Contents

Volume I.- 1 Cambridge, That Was: The Crucible of Heterodox Economics.- 1.1 The Narrative.- 1.2 Evolutions and Revolutions.- 1.2.1 The Great Banyan of Heterodox Traditions.- 1.2.2 Cohorts.- 1.2.3 The Cambridge Habitat.- 1.2.4 Which Cambridge?.- 1.3 Regime Change.- 1.3.1 The World of Cambridge: Stories Within.- 1.3.2 Worlds Beyond Cambridge: Neoliberalism at the Gates.- 1.4 The Dialectic of Competing Paradigms.- 1.4.1 Laissez-Faire: “Receding at last into the distance”.- 1.4.2 The Force of Ideas.- 1.4.3 Opposition Brewing.- 1.4.4 Evolutions and Hegemonic Incorporation.- 1.4.5 Ideological: Not the Techniques but the Purposes of Economics.- 1.4.6 Sociological: Mathematical Whiz-Kids and Ageing Dinosaurs.- 1.4.7 Beyond Kuhnian Reductionism.- 1.4.8 Mankiw’s Pendulum.- 1.4.9 Solow’s À La Carte Approach.- 1.4.10 Silos and Trenches.- 1.4.11 Joan Versus Hahn—History Versus Equilibrium.- 1.5 Semantics and Pedantics.- References.- 2 The Warring Tribes.- 2.1 A Sanctuary of Sages.- 2.1.1 Class to Community: The Cement of War.- 2.1.2 Community to Conflict: Cement to Sand.- 2.1.3 A Pride of Savage Prima Donnas.- 2.2 Faculty Wars.- 2.2.1 Paradise Lost.- 2.2.2 Fault Lines Within.- Wynne Godley: No Legacy No Synthesis, No Textbooks—The Samuelson Factor.- Shifting Student Preferences?.- “Irrelevance” and Irreverence: Joan and K-Theory.- Inbred Insularity, Complacency.- Simultaneities in the Demographic Lifecycle.- Lack of Internal Group Coherence.- The Heterodox Camp: No Chairs—Sorry, Standing Room Only.- A Break in Intergenerational Transmission, in the Reproduction of Traditions.- 2.3 Godfathers, Uncles and Nephews: The Gathering Foe.- 2.3.1 The Trojan Horse: By the Pricking of My Thumbs.- 2.3.2 Forming the Academy.- Meanwhile, at the Orthodox Party—A Merry Game of Musical Chairs.- 2.3.3 The Chess Master.- 2.4 The Campaign: How the War Was Lost and Won.- 2.4.1 The Orthodox Gambit: Capture the External Commanding Heights.- 2.4.2 Carrots and Commanders.- 2.4.3 Modus Operandi: Masters, Mandarins and Interlocking Committees.- References.- 3 Worlds Beyond Cambridge: The Global Web of the ‘Neoliberal Thought Collective’.- 3.1 Conjunctures.- 3.1.1 1930s, The Prelude.- LSE Versus Cambridge.- Émigré Economists: The Benefactions of Lenin and Hitler.- 3.1.2 1940s, The Cascade.- 3.1.3 Keynesianism: Divergent Receptions.- Post-war Affinity in the UK.- Post-New Deal Hostility in the USA.- 3.2 Spreading the Word: Messiahs, Messages, Methods.- 3.2.1 Ideas and Ideologies: Manufacturers and Retailers.- 3.2.2 USA: Early Ideological Entrepreneurs of Libertarianism.- Harold Luhnow: The Volker Fund and its Dollars.- Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and its Facilitators.- 3.2.3 Europe: Friedrich Hayek and the Mont Pelerin Society.- Antecedents.- Pilgrims Atop a Mountain, Mont Pelerin, Switzerland, April 1947.- Financial Sponsors.- The First Meeting of Minds.- Sarcastic Schumpeter, Sceptical Solow, Scathing Samuelson.- 3.2.4 UK: Antony Fisher, Global Venture Capitalistof Think Tanks.- 3.3 Branding the Message: The ‘Nobel’ Prize.- 3.3.1 The Stockholm Connection: Ideological Entrepreneurs.- 3.3.2 Some Early Awards: Setting the Direction.- Jan Tinbergen—Ragnar Frisch 1969.- Samuelson 1970.- Gunnar Myrdal—Friedrich von Hayek 1974.- Milton Friedman 1976.- 3.3.3 Mont Pelerin Society and the ‘Nobel’—A Golden Embrace.- 3.3.4 Cambridge Heterodoxy?.- 3.3.5 ‘An Ideological Coup’.- 3.4 Reaching Politics: Weaponising the Message.- 3.4.1 Santiago de Chile: Pinochet the Pioneer.- Chicago and its Cowboys.- Thatcher: Romancing Pinochet’s Chile.- 3.4.2 The White House: Reagan, a Disciple.- 3.4.3 10 Downing Street: Thatcher, a Devotee.- More than its Weight in Gold—The Market Price of Symbolic Capital.- 3.4.4 Pulling Together.- 3.5 Besieging Cambridge: The Chicago–MIT–LSE Trinity.- 3.5.1 A Cross-Atlantic Triangle.- 3.5.2 Diversity of Practice.- 3.5.3 Unity of Purpose.- References.- 4 Camp Skirmishes Over Interstitial Spaces: Journals, Seminars, Textbooks.- 4.1 The Battle of Teruel—The Day before.- 4.2 Journals.- 4.2.1 EJ Leaves ‘Home’—The Loss of a Flagship.- 4.2.2 CJE Arrives—A Forum of One’s Own.- 4.2.3 Cambridge Economic Policy Review: One Crowded Hour of Glorious Life.- 4.3 Seminars.- 4.3.1 Cambridge Economic Club—A Marshallian Precursor: 1884–1890, 1896–?.- 4.3.2 Political Economy Club: From Keynes to Robertson to Kahn—Dazzling to Dour.- 4.3.3 The Marshall Society: A Socialisation into Economics and Its Purposes.- 4.3.4 Piero Sraffa’s Research Students Seminar: A Precocious Nursery.- 4.3.5 In Retrospect, Austin Robinson on the Cambridge Circus: The Engine Room of The General Theory.- 4.3.6 Cambridge–LSE Joint Seminar: Jousting Juniors.- 4.3.7 Kahn’s ‘Secret’ Seminar at King’s: Fires in the Kitchen.- 4.3.8 The Richard Stone Common Room: Typhoo and Typhoons.- 4.3.9 Ajit Singh’s Political Economy Seminar at Queens’: Young Turks.- 4.3.10 Arestis and Kitson Political Economy Seminar at St. Catherine’s College.- 4.3.11 Hahn’s Churchill Seminar: OnlyMaths and Neoclassicals, Others Beware.- 4.3.12 Cambridge Growth Project Seminar at DAE.- 4.3.13 Hahn’s ‘Quaker’ Risk Seminar: The Rising Tide.- 4.3.14 Matthews’s CLARE Group: The Master’s Lodge of Moderate Practitioners.- 4.3.15 Lawson—Realism and Social Ontology: Ways of Seeing and Framing.- 4.4 Textbooks.- 4.4.1 Distant Thunder: Keynes and McCarthy, Tarshis and Samuelson.- 4.4.2 Lawrence Klein and the Paradox of The Keynesian Revolution.- Puzzle.- Ph.D.—At Samuelson’s Feet.- Cowles Commission—The New Dealers.- The Keynesian Revolution: The Extra Chapter— Klein, Then a Closet Marxist?.- Beyond Keynes.- UMich and McCarthyism.- Policy to Forecasting.- Resolution.- 4.4.3 ‘Death of a Revolutionary Textbook’: Robinson and Eatwell.- 4.4.4 An ‘Applied Economics’ Textbook That Wasn’t: Joan and Young Friends.- 4.5 The Battle of Teruel—The Day After.- Appendix 4.1: First off the Blocks: Mabel Timlin’s Keynesian Economics, 1942.- References.- 5 The DAE Trilogy.- 5.1 Origins and Evolution.- 5.1.1 Origins.- 5.1.2 Evolution: Substance and Styles.- 5.1.3 Foundations of Stone.- 5.1.4 Reddaway’s Method: Eclectic Development.- 5.1.5 Godley: Turbulent Times.- 5.2 End of the Golden Age: The Decade of Discontent.- 5.3 The Trilogy: Discrete Episodes or a Serial Campaign?.- Appendix 5.1: DAE—Finding a Good Home.- References.- 6 Cambridge Economic Policy Group: Beheading a Turbulent Priest.- 6.1 Charged Conjuncture.- 6.1.1 Imbroglios of 1974: Old Versus New Cambridge Versus the Establishment.- 6.1.2 The Enigma of Kahn.- 6.1.3 Kaldor: On Radical Policy Implications of New Cambridge, 1976.- 6.1.4 Cambridge Squabbles: Spillover into Whitehall?.- 6.1.5 Triggering Crisis: The Pivot of the OPEC Price Hikes.- 6.1.6 1979: Enter Margaret Thatcher, Right-Wing, Upfront.- 6.1.7 The Case of the Odd Consensus: The Letter by 364 Economists, 1981.- 6.1.8 Thatcher in the Garage of the Federal Reserve.- 6.1.9 1981: Brixton Riots, Toxteth Fires: “A Concentration of Hopelessness”.- 6.1.10 TheCEPG: A Thorn in the Thatcher Hide.- 6.1.11 The Bogey of Import Controls and the Spectre of Bennism.- 6.2 SSRC and CEPG: Dispensing Instant Injustice.- 6.2.1 Posner’s Parlour.- 6.2.2 Posner’s Process.- 6.3 Epilogue.- 6.3.1 Vengeance.- 6.3.2 The Team Scattered.- 6.3.3 The Model Reincarnated.- 6.3.4 The Rehabilitation of Wynne.- 6.3.5 Wynne Godley: ‘My Credo’ ….- 6.3.6 The Pacification of the CEPG.- Appendix 6.1: Old Cambridge, New Cambridge, 1974: and All the King’s Men.- 1. Letter WG to RFK 23 May 1974. JVR/ vii/228/3/3.- 2. Letter NK to RFK 20 May 1974. JVR/ vii/228/3/14-16.- 3. Letter from RFK and MP to NK 24 May 1974. JVR/vii/228/3/17-20.- 4. Letter from RFK and MP to NK 28 May 1974. JVR/vii/228/3/24.- 5. Letter from FC to RFK 29 May 1974. JVR/7/228/3/25.- 6. Reply from RFK to FC 6 June 1974. JVR/7/228/3/24.- 7. In the interim, NK replied to RFK and MP. JVR/7/228/3/26.- 8. Letter from NK to RFK. RFK/12/2/132/3.- References.- 7 ‘Unintended’ Collateral Damage? The Cambridge EconomicPolicy Group and the Joseph-Rothschild-Posner SSRC Enquiry, 1982.- 7.1 Joseph—Rothschild—Posner—Godley.- 7.2 The Posner-the-Saviour Narrative.- 7.3 Setting Up the Enquiry.- 7.4 Who Proposed Rothschild?.- 7.5 Rothschild Report Writing Process.- 7.6 The Judgement of Rothschild.- 7.7 Between Draft and Release and Response: Handshakes and Cigars.- 7.8 Did Posner Get Away with Just a Change of Name?.- 7.9 CEPG—Collateral Damage? Or, Traded Down the River?.- 7.10 The Rothschild Report: Gleanings on Macroeconomic Modelling.- 7.11 Lord Kaldor—Off the Record, Off the Cuff, Off the Mark?.- 7.12 Lord Harris’ Vitriol.- 7.13 Catholicity and Independence.- 7.14 Rothschild’s Last Word.- 7.15 Joseph’s Last Laugh.- References.- 8 Cambridge Growth Project: Running the Gauntlet.- 8.1 Background and Conjuncture.- 8.1.1 The Decision.- 8.2 Substantive Issues.- 8.2.1 No Innovation?.- 8.2.2 Catholicity, Turnover and the Value of Disaggregation.- 8.2.3 Use of Input-Output Tables.- 8.2.4 CGP Presence in PolicyDebates.- 8.2.5 Insularity.- 8.2.6 On Exploiting the Cheap Labour of Graduate Students.- 8.3 Issues of Procedural Probity.- 8.3.1 Shifting Goalposts Across Evaluations.- 8.3.2 Unequal Application of Criterion of Commercial Funding.- 8.3.3 Public Good or Private Resource?.- 8.3.4 ESRC Ignored CGP Model Performance: Why?.- 8.3.5 Compromised ‘Independent’ Evidence.- 8.4 Other Concerns.- 8.4.1 ‘Reds’?.- 8.4.2 Crowding Out Competitors?.- 8.4.3 Deadweight Loss of Built-up Intellectual Capital.- 8.4.4 Gratuitously Offensive: Up Close and Out of Order.- 8.4.5 The Consortium: ‘Revived Talk of Conspiracy Theory’.- 8.4.6 In Defence, a Lone Voice, Overruled.- 8.5 Epilogue: CGP—Life After Death?.- Appendix 8.1: CGP Staff Members, Timeline 1960–1987.- Appendix 8.2: Publications of CGP Staff.- References.- 9 The DAE Review 1984–1987: A Four-Year Inquisition.- 9.1 The Campaign of Attrition.- 9.1.1 Occluded Origins.- 9.1.2 Two Stages, Two Committees.- 9.2 The Orthodox Gambit.- 9.2.1 The Agenda Revealed.- 9.2.2 The Game Plan: Four Options.- Closure.- Separation.- Absorption.- Capture.- 9.2.3 External Critiques: Collusion as Consultation?.- 9.3 The Heterodox Defence.- 9.3.1 Solidarity, Testimonies, Rebuttals.- 9.3.2 Chinks in the DAE Armour?.- 9.4 On the Rack: Bleeding the DAE.- 9.4.1 The Secretary General, The Prince and the Chess Master.- 9.4.2 The Capture.- 9.4.3 How it Transpired, Perhaps Not Just by Chance.- 9.4.4 Checkmate: A Constitutional Coup.- 9.5 Epilogue.- Appendix 9.1: DAE Review Committees: Composition and Terms of Reference.- First Advisory Committee. Constituted: Easter Term 1984; Reported: May 1985.- Second Advisory Committee: Constituted: Easter Term 1985; Reported April 1987.- Appendix 9.2: Labour Studies Group: Dispersed, Not Defeated.- References.- Volume II.- 10 Sociology: The Departure of ‘Stray Colleagues in a Vaguely Cognate Discipline’.- 10.1 Early Years: Hostility, Neglect, Subordination.- 10.2 Sociology: Growing Up Amongst Economists.- 10.3 Hostile Public Spaces: SSRC, Rothschild-1982 and Sociology.- 10.3.1 Entrenched Resistance to the Emergence of SSRC.- 10.3.2 In the Court of Public Opinion: Open Season on Sociology.- 10.3.3 The Joseph–Rothschild Assault.- 10.4 Back in Cambridge, 1984–1986: To Remain Or to Exit, That Was the Question.- 10.4.1 Sociology in the DAE Review: Crossfire and Crossroads.- 10.4.2 Cometh the Hour, Cometh … Tony Giddens.- 10.5 Archival Insights: Harboured Preferences Revealed.- 10.5.1 Do Please Stay, Pleaded the Heterodox.- 10.5.2 Clear Out Now, Growled the Orthodox.- 10.5.3 Do What Is Best for You, Whispered the Faculty Board.- 10.5.4 Time to Choose: The Sociologists Speak.- 10.6 Leaving Home, a Space of Its Own.- References.- 11 Development on the Periphery: Exit and Exile.- 11.1 Cambridge Development Studies: The Heterodox Inheritance.- 11.1.1 The Capitalist Economy and Its Cambridge Critics.- 11.1.2 Bridges to Development.- 11.2 Evolution of the Teaching Project: Multiple Identities.- 11.2.1 Timelines.- 11.2.2 In University Space: The Professionalisation of ‘Development Studies’.- The Early Years: Fine-tuning Imperial Instruction, 1926–1969.- Turbulence and Transformation: Revising the Mandate, 1969–1982.- 11.2.3 In Faculty Space: The Disciplining of ‘Development Economics’.- 11.2.4 Against the Mainstream: Subaltern Perspectives.- 11.3 Development Research: Ebbs and Flows.- 11.3.1 Cambridge–India Highway: Cambridge in India.- 11.3.2 Cambridge–India Highway: India in Cambridge.- 11.3.3 Not Just India.- 11.3.4 Bi-modal Distribution of Development Interest.- 11.4 1996: Divorce and Eviction.- 11.5 A Credible Counterfactual.- Appendix 11.1: Arguments in Support of Continuation of Development Studies Course in Cambridge.- References.- 12 From Riches to Rags? Economic History Becomes History at the Faculty of Economics.- 12.1 Introduction: Economics and Economic History.- 12.2 The Pre-War Period: 1939, Marshallian.- 12.2.1 At the Faculty of History.- Cunningham to Clapham via Marshall.- Clapham to Postan via Power.- 12.2.2 At the Faculty of Economics and Politics.- Maurice Dobb, 1900–1976.- 12.3 Post-War Period-I, 1945–1980s: Post-Keynesian.- 12.3.1 At the Faculty of Economics and Politics.- On the DAE Side.- On the Faculty Side.- 12.3.2 At the Faculty of History.- ‘Munia’ Postan.- The Turn to Business Studies-I, David Joslin 1965–1970.- The Turn to Business Studies-II, Donald Coleman 1971–1981.- 12.4 Post-War Period-II, 1980s: Unravelling and Divergence.- 12.4.1 At the Faculty of History.- The Turn to Business Studies-III, Barry Supple 1981–1993.- Modern Times: Martin Daunton 1997–2015.- 12.4.2 At the Faculty of Economics: Turbulence, Transitions and Affinities.- Cluster 1: Humphries—Horrell.- Cluster 2: Kitson—Solomou—Weale.- Cluster 3: Ogilvie—Edwards.- Cluster 4: Toke Aidt.- 12.5 c.2020, Here, to Where?.- 12.5.1 Economic History at the Faculty of Economics: Full Stop?.- 12.5.2 At the Faculty of History: New Turnings.- Appendix 12.1: Economic History and Accounting at the DAE.- Appendix 12.2: Locating Phyllis Deane in National Accounting and Feminist Discourse: A Supplementary Note.- References.- 13 Research Assessment Exercises: Exorcising Heterodox Apostasy from ‘Economics’.- 13.1 The Agenda.- 13.2 The Teaching Body: Unification, Hierarchy, Control.- 13.3 1986: Swinnerton-Dyer and the Genesis of the RAE.- 13.4 1986–1989: Frank Hahn and the Orthodox Capture of the RES.- 13.5 Through the RES: Controlling Panel Selection.- 13.6 Outcomes.- 13.7 Consequences and Critiques.- 13.7.1 Gaming.- 13.7.2 Competition and Conflict: Managerialism.- 13.7.3 Individual Stress.- 13.7.4 Medium Over Message: Diamonds for Ever.- 13.7.5 Unethical Research Practices and Shaky Quality Proxies.- 13.7.6 The Atrophy of Collective Research Traditions and Environments.- 13.7.7 The Loss of Intrinsic Values.- 13.7.8 Undervaluation of Undergraduate Teaching.- 13.8 The Suppression of Heterodox Economics and Economists.- 13.9 Follow Big Brother: Elimination of Heterodoxy in USA.- 13.10 1662, Deja Vu.- References.- 14 Reincarnations.- 14.1 In a Nutshell, à la Joan.- 14.2 Purges and Purification.- 14.3 Triumphalism.- 14.4 A Royal Mess: The Queen’s Question.- 14.5 Students Speak Up.- 14.5.1 In Cambridge.- 14.5.2 Elsewhere.- 14.6 Faculty Performance: A Summary Report Card.- 14.6.1 Global Ranks.- 14.6.2 RAEs, REFs.- 14.7 Exiles and Reincarnations.- 14.7.1 The DAE Flagships: CGP and CEPG.- 14.7.2 DAE Industrial Economics: Alan Hughes and the CBR.- 14.7.3 Judge Business School.- 14.7.4 The Economic Historians.- 14.7.5 Sociology: That ‘Vaguely Cognate Discipline’.- 14.7.6 Development.- 14.8 Reluctant Regrets.- 14.8.1 Robin Matthews.- 14.8.2 Frank Hahn.- 14.8.3 David Newbery.- 14.8.4 Tony Atkinson.- 14.8.5 Francois Bourguignon.- 14.8.6 Alan Blinder.- 14.8.7 Peter Diamond.- 14.8.8 Partha Dasgupta via Robert Neild.- 14.8.9 Another Snowflake Moment?.- 14.9 Donors: Leveraging a Reboot?.- 14.10 The Great Banyan.- Appendix 14.1: Letter of Protest by Graduate Students, 2001 1073 References.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This book is awesome in both its depth and range. It is avowedly a story of how the Economic Faculty of Cambridge University where not just Keynesian economics but macroeconomics was born and became home not just to Keynesians such as Joan and Austin Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor and Brian Reddaway but also Marxists such as Maurice Dobb, was converted into a fortress of not just neoclassical but neoliberal economics from the 1980s. Saith traces the change in the political atmosphere with the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. But he also shows how there was a planned attack on heterodox economics and economists by Matthews, Hahn and Dasgupta, who saw to it that only people of their choice were appointed to the Faculty and to all prestigious committees and editorial boards of journals, not only in Cambridge but everywhere else in Britain. They found allies in the LSE and in Chicago and Cambridge, Mass. overseas. The attackers took advantage of dissensions among the leaders of Keynesian economics in Cambridge. Saith also brings in sociology, development and economic history in his intense focus. This book should be required reading for everybody interested in the survival of people-friendly heterodox social sciences, including economics. Readers would realize that very similar tactics have been used by neoliberal economists wherever they have been able to obtain a foothold. That acquisition has been made easier with the omnipresence of the IMF and the World Bank. Saith's book is a notable addition to the history of economic thought and to the history of our times.”

—AMIYA BAGCHI, Emeritus Professor and Emeritus Director, Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata; Adjunct Professor, Monash University, Australia

"This book explains how Cambridge (and indeed British) preeminence in post-Keynesian economics was undermined in the 1970s. With outstanding forensic scholarship, Saith reveals the institutional and personal networking that replaced a distinctive and empirical tradition in political economy by neoclassical orthodoxy. The book is destined to become the definitive account in the history of economic thought of how neoclassical economists reinforced their hegemony over the academic discipline in the 20th Century.”

—TERRY BARKER, Former Director, Cambridge Growth Project, Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge; Coordinating Lead Author, IPCC 1996-2006; Director, Cambridge Econometrics Ltd.

“The Economics Faculty at the University of Cambridge is, arguably, one of the most famous in the world, suffused with the history of great ideas and the remarkable achievements of distinguished men and women. As a history of this Faculty, with particular emphasis on the past 75 years, Ashwani Saith’s book is a tour de force. This is a compelling account of the jousts between the heterodox defenders of the Cambridge castle, who eschewed quantitative methods in economics, and their foreign invaders in the form of neoclassical economists who were devoted to the American tradition of using mathematics and statistics. Saith tells a fascinating story of how the seemingly impregnable citadel fell to a combination of enemies within the faculty, aided by the university administration, and with the active assistance of the government of the day in the UK. Was this a Pyrrhic victory, which reduced a once great and independent faculty to an imitation of US economics departments, or was such an overthrow long overdue? And who were the winners and losers? and what became of them? These are all issues addressed by the author in this fascinating analysis of the fall of economics at Cambridge from its glory days.”

—VANI BOROOAH, Emeritus Professor and Chair of Applied Economics, University of Ulster; Past President, Irish EconomicAssociation, and Secretary, Royal Irish Academy

“The Keynesian-Sraffian double revolution of the Years of High Theory (1926-1939-1960) laid the basis for the Keynesian triumph from, broadly, 1945 to 1975—We are all Keynesians now!—became a current saying. In his immensely important book Ashwani Saith now pictures in great detail the tragedy linked to the systematic destruction of the Keynesian tradition at Cambridge through the neoclassicals from 1975 onwards. His book represents a substantive contribution to the recent history of economics.”

—HEINRICH BORTIS, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, History of Economic Theory and Economic History, Department of Economics, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

“I came to Cambridge in 1985 to work in the Department of Applied Economics as part of an interdisciplinary project involving Economics, Sociology and Social Psychology, progressing onto a lectureship in Social and Political Sciences (SPS) and finally a Chair and sometime Head of Department in Sociology. This book makes it clear why such a career path is no longer an option and does a lot to make sense to me of the period from the mid 1985s until now. It also explains, in a large part, why the Faculty of Economics has, for a long time now, been seen as an outlier amongst Cambridge institutions, cut off from the other social sciences. Reading this manuscript forced me to reflect deeply on just how things worked out like they did. Perhaps for now the music has stopped, but when (as it invariably will) the music starts playing again, I hope that someone with Ashwani Saith’s eye for details and the bigger picture will be around to write the sequel!”

—BRENDAN BURCHELL, Professor in the Social Sciences Chair, Archaeology, Anthropology and Sociology Degree Committee; President of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge

“This book opens up the shadowy world whereacademic orthodoxy aligns with neo-conservative politics and corporate power to block applied research in the Keynesian tradition making the search for solutions to long-standing global problems very, very hard if not impossible. Ashwani Saith digs deep to uncover not only the procedures through which protagonists of the neo-classical paradigm purged researchers whose evidence stood in their way but also the doubts and hesitations of the galaxy of world-famous economists who contributed to the rise and subsequent demise of Keynesian economics at its birthplace in Cambridge. The author describes the step-by-step process of demolition of the Cambridge Department of Applied Economics and purge of heterodox teaching of economics, sociology, development and economic history at a Faculty that had been the birthplace of the twentieth century Keynesian revolution, attracting graduate students from around the world. People who share concerns about governance in the twenty-firstcentury should read this book and think hard about how damage done in the last quarter of the twentieth century can be repaired and how open and plural research environments demanded by contemporary students can be restored.”

—FRANCIS CRIPPS, Director, Alphametrics Co., Ltd, Bangkok, Thailand

“The strange death of Cambridge heterodox economics is a significant development in intellectual history and is well worth the detailed attention it gets in this book. It has an excellent source basis: relevant archival documents, a wide range of publications, and interviews or email exchanges with many of those directly involved. The book covers a wide range of Cambridge issues, from Hahn’s self-image as John the Baptist to the critiques of economics by Polly Hill and Michael Postan. However, the book is not confined to internal Cambridge matters but pays attention to national and international developments outside Cambridge that influenced or determined the outcome. These range from the decisions by the SSRC & ESRC to stop funding the major research programmes at the DAE (Department of Applied Economics), to the creation and activities of the Mont Pelerin Society and the vicissitudes of Keynesianism in the USA. This remarkable and well-written book is a mine of information. It is well worth reading and recommending to colleagues and libraries.”

—MICHAEL ELLMAN, Emeritus Professor, University of Amsterdam, Awarded 1998 Kondratieff Gold Medal; Co-editor, Cambridge Journal of Economics

"I had the great pleasure to read early versions of this meticulously researched history of the rise and demise of Cambridge heterodox economics in the post-Keynesian era. I warmly congratulate Ashwani for his tour de force."

—GEOFFREY HARCOURT (27 June 1931–7 December 2021), Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Adelaide, Australia; Emeritus Reader in History of Economic Theory, University of Cambridge

“Ashwani Saith has written a carefully researched and compelling account of the means by which the Cambridge Faculty of Economics and Politics was purged of heterodox applied economic analysis in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It draws on memoirs and interviews with participants in the contest for control, and a detailed archival analysis to reveal the methods by which this was achieved. These methods extended beyond the Faculty into the operations of major research funders. It should be read by anyone with an interest in the ways in which power can be exercised to control the nature of academic discourse and for the implications this may have for the future and relevance of the economics discipline.”

—ALAN HUGHES, Emeritus Margaret Thatcher Professor of Enterprise Studies and Director, Emeritus, Centre for Business Research, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge; Life Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge

“History is usually written by the victors, but Ashwani Saith speaks for and from the other side of the battlelines of how Cambridge Economics came to expunge its vibrant heterodox traditions, closed its hitherto distinguished applied department, narrowed its methodological approach and rejected scholarly dissent. It is a voice that should be heard, and a book that must be read, certainly by anyone interested in making economics socially meaningful and fit again for the pursuit of public purpose.”

—JANE HUMPHRIES, Centennial Professor, London School of Economics; Emeritus Professor of Economic History, University of Oxford; Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford

"When I joined the University of Cambridge in early 2002 and was invited to tutor students of the Faculty of Economics, I was shocked to see that none of those I met ever read Kaldor or Robinson, and the only thing about Keynes they came across was the IS-LM caricatureportrayed by Mankiw. Frequent conversations with Ken Coutts, Francis Cripps, John Eatwell, Wynne Godley, Geoff Harcourt, Ajit Singh and others helped uncover important pieces of the puzzle. But this comprehensive and rigorous book offers a full picture. Ashwani’s opus excels. Through the painstaking account of events at Cambridge there grows an unmistakable appreciation of the imperative for the economics profession worldwide to become meaningful again."

—ALEX IZURIETA, Senior Economist, UNCTAD, Geneva; Former Senior Researcher, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge

“Ashwani Saith’s book is monumental, enthralling, beautifully written with its occasional satirical tone, but as we are being warned, depressing. It explains how the Faculty of Economics of the University of Cambridge—the world centre of post-Keynesian economics—was gradually and entirely taken over by neoclassical economics and why the Department of Applied Economics, also at theheart of heterodox economics, eventually came to be dismantled. This was so far an untold story, except for a chapter on ‘Faculty wars’ in Saith’s previous book, the intellectual biography of Ajit Singh. The current book provides 14 chapters of a meticulous detective story, relying mostly on Cambridge archives, but also on testimonies, interviews, emails, and previous articles of participants to these events. The book makes clear that, besides possible strategical mistakes by the incumbent heterodox economists, there were inexorable and ineluctable outside forces that led to this dismal state of affairs, through the Americanization of the economics profession and through the changing political winds that blew out heterodox and left-wing economics nearly everywhere in the world. The last chapter shows that all is not lost, both in Cambridge and elsewhere in the world.”

—MARC LAVOIE, Professor Emeritus, University of Ottawa, Canada; Professor Emeritus, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France

“This is an important book, and one that makes compelling reading for anyone interested in the developments in economics over the last few decades. It is a fascinating investigation into how ideas are shaped and in turn shape power relations within the academic world, and a passionate defence of the side which was defeated in Cambridge in the feud between heterodox and mainstream economics. Ashwani Saith witnessed the events and, while standing firmly on the side of those who lost the battle, manages to remain fair, balanced and scholarly. Highly recommended.”

—MARIA CRISTINA MARCUZZO, Professor, Accademia dei Lincei, Universita di Roma 'La Sapienza'

“Henry Kissinger once said that “The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small”. This is often true, but not in the case of the Faculty of Economics at Cambridge in the 1980s. The elections of Thatcher and Reagan and the rise of neo-liberalism made the conflict at Cambridge the exception: the stakes were high because this was part of a much larger conflict. When I started my academic career, Cambridge was the place where to be; but when I got an appointment in 1981, little did I know of what was coming! When I joined, the intellectual life of the Faculty consisted mostly of its own internal controversies between two powerful intellectual groups; those controversies kept everyone on their intellectual toes. But political changes in the outside world gave one group the opportunity to ally themselves with powerful external political interests and with internal bureaucracies always all-too eager to acquiesce to external demands. What this group could not win by the power of ideas they achieved through brute force. Little by little, as it's made clear by the meticulous research in Saith’s brilliant book, they squeezed heterodox economics out of the Faculty. When I retired in 2014, a member of the other group told me jokingly: there goes the last of the Mohicans! As a great psychoanalyst discusses in his work, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the expectation of understanding the real, and the tolerance of dissent. As soon as the 1980s began to show the limitation of neo-liberalism as an ideology and neo-classical economics as an economic theory, the dread of having misunderstood the real led to a desperate need for the annihilation of disagreement―as soon as the DAE rightly predicted that Thatcherism will lead to unemployment jumping to 3 million the writing was on the wall. In other words, when expectation of understanding the real is high, difference of opinion is tolerable, but when there is little or no expectation of understanding, the need for agreement is absolute. This brings the destructive instinct into play, turning a belief system into an absolutist one, and this into an engine of ideological genocide. From this perspective Ashwani Saith's book is not just a great contribution to the history of economic thought, but also to the understanding of the intellectual obscurantism of our times.”

—JOSE GABRIEL PALMA, Senior Lecturer Emeritus, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge; Professor of Economics, University of Santiago, Chile; Joint Editor, Cambridge Journal of Economics

“The Keynesian Revolution was not just about the vacuity of Say’s Law or the correct understanding of the determinants of the interest rate. It revolutionized economics as a whole, by completely opening up the subject, liberating it from the straitjacket of a belief in the desirability of perfect markets, and bringing in bold, new thinking in many spheres. In development theory for instance it created room for the entry of structuralism; and in development policy it encouraged novel forms of state intervention within the dirigiste regimes that came up in the post-decolonization era. The Sraffa Revolution, though of a somewhat esoteric nature, had a similar liberating effect. As both revolutions began in Cambridge, it became a magnet for economists from all over the world. The capture of Cambridge by economic orthodoxy therefore was a major episode in the counter-revolution against the liberation of economics. It occurred not because of the superiority of orthodox ideas, but above all through the use of political and economic power. Ashwani Saith’s book is a meticulous and comprehensive discussion of this capture. It is a tour de force that throws valuable light on the sociology behind the dominance of ideas. Given the profound significance of this capture, which prepared the intellectual ground for the subsequent ascendancy of neo-liberal thinking, it should be of interest to every economist, not just those who were directly involved; and it is written with remarkable scrupulousness and lucidity. An essential read.”

—PRABHAT PATNAIK, Emeritus Professor of Economics, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

“This book chronicles the sustained undermining of heterodox economics and the severing of the links between economics and other social sciences in the Cambridge economics faculty from the 1970s onwards. This mattered as Cambridge was the renowned centre for Keynesian and heterodox economics and the suppression of this legacy was important in securing the domination of the neoclassical mainstream. This process was spreading across the world but as Ashwani Saith makes clear, through the most amazingly detailed evidence-based account, it was the specific strategies and practices deployed in Cambridge over decades by a small coterie of powerful academics that led to the evisceration of heterodoxy and cognate disciplines from the Economics Tripos. Painful as it was to relive through thisoutstanding book the years of intrigue, disrespect and intense job insecurity that I had to experience in a key period of my academic life, for me the saddest consequence is that young people now are denied the inspiring, theoretically diverse and interdisciplinary education that I enjoyed in Cambridge in the early 1970s. After the financial crisis economics students across the world started to ask why the economics curriculum no longer had power to explain or resolve real world problems. Many of the answers are to be found here.”

—JILL RUBERY, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Employment Systems, University of Manchester; Former Director, Work and Equalities Institute at Alliance Manchester Business School

“Ashwani Saith has produced a fascinating social anthropology of the warring tribes of Econ at one of their earliest settlements. Drawing on a wealth of original documents and the accounts of a host of participant-observers, he carefully documents the battles for the control of the priesthood, the seminar rituals and the sacred journals, in the liminal time before the old gods of Cambridge Economics were finally displaced. It is both a revealing account of internecine academic warfare and an entertaining read.“

—RON SMITH, Professor of Applied Economics, Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics, Birkbeck, University of London

“The history of Cambridge Economics in the Post-Keynesian Era is a story that needed to be told—and Ashwani Saith's book does it extremely well. In what reads as a detective story-cum-period-novel-cum-family-drama, Saith offers a persuasive, richly documented and fascinating account of how productive, relevant and innovative heterodox economic traditions were purged from the Faculty of Economics of Cambridge University, for reasons of 'ideology' and in order to align the divided department with an increasingly irrelevant mainstream economics. Saith brilliantly manages to contextualise the local happenings in Cambridge within the global rise of the "neoliberal thought-collective", highlighting the crucial roles of individual knowledge brokers, networks, thinktanks, politicians and donors. Fundamental theoretical, ideological and methodological disagreements between the major actors in this drama are discussed with impressive clarity and purpose, and with a keen eye for biographical detail and historical setting. In the end, it is the sad story of the better road not taken. Saith's book brings us back to the fork in the road—and forces us to consider and reconsider our earlier decision. Cambridge Economics in the Post-Keynesian Era is an extraordinary piece of research, lovingly told and immensely worthwhile for the new light it sheds on the epoch-making purge of Keynesian thinking right in its original stronghold.”

—SERVAAS STORM, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; Joint Editor, Development and Change

“This book should be read by anyone with an interest in the freedom of academic study. Ashwani Saith accurately describes the events surrounding the creation of the Cambridge Department of Applied Economic and its development into a successful and prestigious centre for research into economic and social policy, attracting researchers from around the world, and its subsequent dismantling and eventual closure. It is the story of how those who did not subscribe to the dogmas of neoclassical economics, who believed that to start from unrealistic abstract assumptions was not the best way to build models of reality or of understanding behaviour, were driven out of the University, in a number of cases to pursue their research in the private sector. In many cases, they were highly successful in doing so, but to the detriment of economics in Cambridge and to the students who came to study there, attracted by the legacy of Keynes and a desire to understand how economies work and the factors underlying economic and social development. The book is a testament to the investigative skills of the author and his painstaking pursuit of how a shameful episode in Cambridge University history unfolded by uncovering and crawling through countless documents in various archives and interviewing a great many of those that were directly involved. Although it brings back painful personal memories, it is a story that is important to tell, to show how those who have gained academic power can dictate what can be taught, what research questions it is legitimate to try to answer and what methods can be used to do so.”

—TERRY WARD, Research Director, Applica srl. Brussels; Managing Director, Alphametrics Ltd. U.K.